Roman Edirisinghe

If you’re looking for a big bottom to add to your car or home audio system, Tom over at Music Thing has a post on a pair of innovative subwoofers.

One of the subwoofers mentioned is a coneless, fan-driven rotary system that gets frequencies as low as 5 Hz! Instructions include mounting in a basement or attic. Pricing? Consider about $25,000. Ummm, yeah.
The second speaker, a 60 inch subwoofer, made the vehicle housing it balloon in & out a couple of times during testing. That puts those wannabe gangbangers in my neighborhood to shame!

Ryan forwarded me a cool link to an article about a self-tuning guitar. I took one look at the demo video (which featured Graham Nash popping wood) and I popped some serious wood. For a meager $3,000, one can get the Transperformance system installed in your guitar. Tuning takes place within one second – you can actually hear the guitar strings changing tension. True, it’s a bit hi-tech, but for the musician who needs 15 guitars backstage to accomodate different tunings, this would come in quite handy. How could you go wrong with something endorsed by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame?

via Engadget
via gizmag

My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw this. Thomas wanted a free drum machine, so he decided to use Microsoft Excel!?!

So I decided to download the program and give it a shot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t download the sound samples, because that corresponding server had exceeded its data transfer quota. And when I tried hitting ALT-F11 to change the keymappings, I couldn’t. Excel was completely frozen. So, in a nutshell, this program didn’t work for me. However, I will try it again in a little while, and give the author more time to iron out the bugs.

Download DrumPad from Milezero.org

via hack a day

Link thanks to Ryan.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has created a safety report on the numerous substances we use for body care. The site allows the visitor to search through numerous brands and find out what poisons they are using on their bodies. It’s fascinating and (not just mildly) frightening.

EWG Report: Skin Deep

Yesterday, I decided to drive to the Guitar Center to try out a couple of resonator guitars they had in stock, which is a 15 mile drive to Brookfield. My car is a beat up 1989 Toyota Camry. En route, a merging 18-wheeler prompted me to apply my brakes. And they didn’t work properly. It was bad. I used the engine “brake” instead, by downshifting to decelerate. Scary. Once I was slowed down, I noticed the brakes did work, albeit poorly.

(I choose to exclude the fact that I actually drove to the Guitar Center and back with this deadly contraption. Call me stupid, or lucky, or stupid AND lucky. Nicole is rightfully pissed off).

I don’t think I was in the right state of mind, even before I left the house. When I returned from the Guitar Center, I discovered I had left my front door WIDE open and the whole place unlocked. I AM stupid AND lucky.

I vowed never to drive my car again. It’s parked in my garage and I plan to donate it to some local charity…if anyone will accept it.

I also decided to buy another vehicle, likely something that would help me transport my musical gear to gigs. My buddy Todd, who owns a used car dealership, recommended a Plymouth Voyager or Dodge Caravan (turns out they’re practically the same car with a different label), and recommended I stay away from any Ford. I thought, “Good idea!” So I started checking the inventories listed by many local dealers. At one point, I noticed a particular vehicle described as a “Flexible Fuel” vehicle. Flex fuel? What the heck is that? I had never hear of it before. A Google search revealed a great deal of information, especially from the E85fuel site. It turns out that Flexible Fuel vehicles are designed to run on either standard unleaded gasoline or Ethanol (alcohol), or a combination of both. This combo fuel (E85), comprised of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, is now available at some gas stations around the country. Some states will actually offer incentives to gas stations that carry it. This sounds like a good thing in light of this ridiculous oil crisis/dependence. The web site also lists vehicles which are specifically designed for E85.

I’m really happy about this. I was really struggling with the idea of buying another oil dependent vehicle, and it seems that E85 might be a great option. It’s too bad that the Feds don’t draw enough attention to this. Why should they? After all, our beloved George W Bush has his bloody hands in the pockets of big oil companies. Why draw attention away from them? After all, they are the ones who ultimately get richer off increased fuel prices. Along that vein, how do we know that this crisis really follows the rules of supply and demand?

While looking, I also found a site that reviews the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager, and offers the buyer tips on what to look for. Apparently, this vehicle, while blessed with a fine engine, is also cursed with a terrible transmission.

Stay tuned as I look for a fine E85 vehicle.

My buddy Ryan forwarded me a link to several sets of great wallpapers for your desktops comprised entirely of satellite images of our beautiful terrestrial sphere.

Satellite Image Wallpaper

Godfried-Willem Raes has invented a large assortment of automated instruments. His compositions include such works as “GeroSire” (for gesture controlled siren-robot and a nude player), and “TransiTrance” (for robot orchestra and nude performers), and his instruments include such fascinations as Klung (an automated anklung), Autosax (duh, an automated saxophone), So (an automated sousaphone), and Vox Humanola (an automated barrel organ). Apparently, his inventions are MIDI controllable, which opens up a number of possibilities. Imagine composing a score in a program like Sibelius or Finale, and having a real instrument play it back!

Check out Automatons by Godfried-Willem Raes

via Hack A Day

Until last week, I had never heard of CSound, a programming language designed in 1985 for synthesizing sounds and signals. As I read the Engadget article, I discovered that Brian Eno, Richard James (aka Aphex Twin), Trent Reznor (aka Nine Inch Nails) and many others have been using CSound for years. With free downloadable programs for Windows, Mac and Linux, and the tutorials below as a guiding framework, aspiring musicians, producers, and the like should have no trouble getting their computers to beep, squeal and squawk like an ARP.

Part one via Engadget
Part two via Hack A Day

Visit the CSound site

Circuit Bent Roland TR-505, originally uploaded by romanedirisinghe. I found a great site on circuit bending, which Wikipedia defines as “the creative short-circuiting of electronic devices such as guitar effects, children’s toys and synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators.” Never mind that it’s potentially hazardous, and could kill you, but the results are pretty awesome. A few months back I picked up a used Roland TR-505 drum machine, circuit bent by the guy who sold it to me. I think I paid around $75 for it, and man is it cool. Not only can I get the standard sounds out of it, but a few flips of some extra switches allow some otherworldly percussive sounds. Interested? Check out a full circuit bending tutorial at anti-theory.com I’ve just uploaded an MP3 of my circuit bent TR-505 (MP3, 1.51 MB).

Google Maps + GasBuddy = Cheap Gas

It’s a great way to compare gas prices.